Here’s today’s Province editorial:
One of the main problems about the current debate over Lower Mainland transportation is that it always divides itself along ideological lines and is invariably presented as an either/or proposition: Either you build more public transit or you build more roads.
But the fact is that we need both, and then some. …
As readers of Brian Lewis’s column will know, a new group has been formed to press for passenger rail service in the Fraser Valley. Founded by SFU graduate student John Buker, Rail for the Valley states on its website that our governing politicians “want to spend billions of dollars on highways, but they continue to neglect basic rail transportation needs south of the Fraser River.”
As we said, though, this is not an either/or proposition. The Fraser Valley needs an expanded Port Mann Bridge, better roads and more truck and bus routes.
And it needs passenger rail.
Above all, it requires a decently-funded, comprehensive travel system that offers people as many transportation alternatives as possible.
I hear that argument a lot – that we need a balanced transportation system – curiously used to justify the Gateway. And to imply that the critics of it are being unreasonable.
But the Port Mann/ Highway 1 widening is completely about roads. There’s nothing balanced about it. There’s nothing in the budget for rail; there are no plans for rail; there is only the suggestion that twinning the bridge will maybe, at some undetermined time in the future, make room for rail, disconnected from any transportation planning for rail.
And here’s the problem: it will catalyse auto- and truck-dependent development throughout the eastern valley before rail ever shows up, making it considerably more expensive if not futile to introduce rail afterwards.
If The Province wants to be something more than an apologist for Gateway, it should demand that Gateway be stopped until there’s a plan – and more importantly, a budget – for “a decently-funded, comprehensive travel system.”
“But the Port Mann/ Highway 1 widening is completely about roads. There’s nothing balanced about it. ”
That’s a bit of a narrow analysis. If every individual project is expected to be balanced tit for tat, that would lead to the inane argument that the Canada Line’s North Arm Bridge and Middle Arm Bridge don’t add any road capacity to Richmond (even though, arguably, it is needed).
I don’t think you can expect every road project in the region to have a rail component to it. On top of that, time and time again, infrastructure projects in other cities have shown that co-locating rail and highways does not work well because population centres are usually located away from the highway – i.e. the Allen Expressway in Toronto.
You’ll never have tit for tat spending in every little microcosm in the region.
Examining the region as a whole, you’ve probably got a lot of expenditures on rail (freight, passenger and rapid transit) and on roads – and where the money is spent is subject to your chicken and egg argument (transit to serve need or to shape growth), governmental jurisdiction and funding and of course politicians wanting to get re-elected.
As an aside, a forummer (Tintinium) at SkyscraperPage suggested that the Port Mann Bridge could be used in future to link up the Evergreen Line and the LRT planned from Surrey Centre to Guildford Town Centre – in essence building the LRSP’s “T-Line” but further east and with a more direct connection (no transfers) between Coquitlam/Pitt Meadows and Surrey’s Town Centres.
See map here:
http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=116561339153403595720.000437aae0b43998ad75b&z=11&om=1
And thread here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=123767&page=2
I agree with you Gordon. It’s interesting to note the City of Vancouver’s “balance” for transportation planning which has kept the car in check while increasing pedestrian, cyclist and transit modes:
1) Pedestrians;
2) Cyclists;
3) Transit;
4) Goods Movement;
and lastly …
5) Cars.
When will the Premier and his government come to its senses and reevaluate the environmental, economic and social costs of an expanded freeway system and the related sprawl and autodependency that this misdirected investment will engender?
I think that gateway will acutally help, It’s a absolute mess out there right now. The tolls and bus service over the bridge will help congestion. It’s not like they are building a new highway only improving the bottlenecks we currently have. No one can deny the Fraser valley has seen an explosion of growth over the last 25 years and this is w/o an expanded freeway, do people really think the expansion of sprawl will stop if we don’t do gateway? We have built alot of rapid transit w/o touching the road system, it’s only fair to spread the money around. It’s only a matter of time before Evergreen (or it’s substitute) and the Millenium extension are built. But neither of these will help the Fraser Valley.
Joe, Joe, Joe – you’re missing the point! The Gateway project is at best a short-term fix. For a time it may relieve congestion, but 20 years down the road things will be back to where they are now, and there will be MORE calls for bigger highways and more bridges. What I think GP is trying to point out is that at some point there will have to be a similar choice to the one already made in Vancouver. More roads is simply not a sustainable path forwards. We need to think longer term.
I agree they will eventually be fulled back up, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build it though. We could argue the exact same thing about high rises, if we knock down SFHs and build a high rise it will fill up and eventually we have to build more highrises to fit more people. The point is we can not stop progress, only shape it. Gateway is not the end solution, but I do see it as the current one. Ultimately we would all love to be able to work in the same area we live in and avoid commuting at all. Does anyone really think that is possible within the next 20 years? It’s a great goal but we can’t wait around for it, we need to resolve the current problems. The #1 is a mess, anything done to help it is welcome. By the way I live in Vancouver and work here, so I don’t have a vested interest, but I do see the current problem.
If a lot of people are saying road expansion and transit, and a lot of people are saying transit and no road expansion, what is the common factor here?
Most people agree we need to expand transit NOW, not some time in the future after Gateway. We need rapid transit between Coquitlam and Surrey. We need commuter rail (or equivalent) to Abbotsford. We need BRT or light rail in the more densely populated areas of Surrey and Langley.
The provincial (and federal) government needs to provide funding for transit expansion. If they want to be “balanced” and expand Hwy 1 and Port Mann, they’d get a lot less resistance if they also spent on transit expansion as well.
The point so conveniently often overlooked in this debate is that (just as in Vancouver) rail rights of way have existed for almost a century. There’s no reason why at least some portions couldn’t be used (with upgraded tracking, of course) as the foundation for LRT. Interesting links here:
http://www.railforthevalley.com./
The best comparison for Greater Vancouver may well be Melbourne, a city whose people (unlike Vancouver’s) has fought to retain its interurban rail and tram system; and whose modern tram network, despite setbacks, continues to evolve.
BC reporting on this issue continues to be at best parochial, at worst unabashedly supportive of the automotive industry.